High Sobriety (30 page)

Alcohol is often used as a way to pump money back into local sports clubs, through sponsorship and selling grog at fundraising events. At his former rugby league club in Brisbane, Brent recalls ‘horn and prawn' nights at which, for $100 a ticket, players and supporters would pack into an industrial shed to enjoy seafood, booze, and strippers. It proved to be a successful revenue raiser until the events became rowdy, fights broke out, and community members objected to the overall unseemliness, and they were shut down. While back then, in his twenties, it was ‘a bit of a laugh', as the father of a ten-year-old girl, he now views it with regret. Brent thinks that these days local rugby clubs are less reliant on alcohol, and he knows players who don't drink at all during the season — but there's no doubt that he learned to drink by being involved in sport.

So why was alcohol such an integral part of his rugby-playing experience, I wonder. ‘The social aspect's quite important: there's a lot of bonding that's done over it. It's all very fraternal,' he says. ‘But I suppose it's just all around you. The Australian cricket team drink VB. I've been at the cricket that many times where by lunchtime you're that boozed, you wouldn't have a clue what's going on. You go to the races and you watch the first couple, and for the rest of the day it's a social thing and there's a horse race in the background. It's become such a big part of our culture. Alcohol seems to be sport's vice.'

MY DILEMMA ABOUT
whether to drink if Hawthorn won the premiership was short-lived: a last-quarter capitulation against Collingwood saw us lose the preliminary final by three points in the dying minutes. I hadn't been that devastated by a sporting catastrophe since Hearts lost the Scottish premier league and cup double in the space of a week, at the end of the 1985–86 season.

After the Hawks went down, I walked back from the MCG in the rain, through a sludge of bullish Collingwood fans, and got home in time to hear our coach, Alastair Clarkson, tell a press conference that the boys just weren't good enough. ‘We had them on the ropes and we didn't finish them off,' he said glumly.

Losing was awful. I could only imagine how bad the players felt. After a gruelling six-month season, slugging it out in one of the most physically challenging competitions in the world, they had nothing to show for their efforts but battered bodies and dented pride. It should have been no surprise that some of them went off the rails when it was over.

Whether it's the pressure of the spotlight or the thrill-seeking nature of athletes, who spend their lives pumped with adrenaline, some footballers can't seem to help getting into trouble when they drink. This year started with Brisbane Lions star Brendan Fevola being arrested for drunken bad behaviour; it wasn't his first boozy night of shame. Then in April, Melbourne vice-captain Brent Moloney celebrated his best-on-ground performance in a win over Brisbane by getting so drunk that he was thrown out of a nightclub at 3.00 a.m., just hours before he was due to turn up for training. In 2010, a magistrate had warned Collingwood's Heath Shaw that he was putting his career at risk after he twice got behind the wheel after drinking, despite a court-enforced order that he be completely sober when driving. It followed an incident two years earlier, in which he and teammate Alan Didak were nearly sacked following a boozy night out that saw him crash into several parked cars. In 2009, Essendon rising star Michael Hurley assaulted a taxi driver at 5.30 a.m. in a dispute over a fare, after a night spent drinking at Channel Nine's
The Footy Show
end-of-season revue after-party.

‘Mad Monday', the traditional end-of-season piss-up, is also notorious for bad behaviour and excessive drinking. Wary of the publicity and more mindful of their duty of care to the young men in their charge, clubs now manage these events tightly so that players get into less trouble than they once did. But every year, without fail, there will be at least one player who ends up getting arrested for urinating in public; drink-driving; getting into a brawl with a punter; or somehow embarrassing themselves, the club, and the AFL on an alcohol-fuelled night of temporary madness. It's not easy to rein in a group of young men who spend most of the year adhering to a strict training and nutritional regime, and by season's end are raring to cut loose.

A 2009 study in
The Medical Journal of Australia
found that 54 per cent of AFL players drink at levels likely to cause long-term harm during the two weeks following the season's end, and 41 per cent drink that way during vacation times. The same year, Pippa Grange, a psychologist who worked with the AFL Players Association, told me in an interview that nightclubs encouraged this type of drinking, putting on bar tabs for high-profile players to allow them to drink for free to a set limit. ‘Sometimes those drink cards can be ridiculously big — as high as $1000. Venues want the footy stars in there because they attract a particular crowd of young people. Because the drinks are free, it's like a smorgasbord — you're just going to keep going back until you're totally over-full or too drunk,' she said.

For the same story, I spoke to former footballers from the 1970s and 1980s, all steeped in a heavy-drinking culture that made getting on the piss an unquestioned part of the game, even during the season. After the final siren, players would share beers in the changing rooms. ‘Recovery' sessions the following day were also often boozy affairs, where hardened drinkers were viewed as legends.

For the most part, modern-day players wouldn't dream of binge drinking during the season. Former Western Bulldogs star Scott West — who was dumped by his club at the end of the 2008 season, and later admitted to going on a month-long drinking binge to cope with the sudden end of his career — told me that he didn't advocate a return to those days, but argued that today's young footy stars need to be given more leeway. ‘The demographic of the player now is between 18 and 23, and if you have a look at society, at that age they're all going out and having fun and probably getting into fights, but they're not getting on the front page. The expectation on the players is they're professional 24/7 these days. But there should be room for players to have their time and enjoy themselves.'

In 2009, the AFL and the Players Association launched a formal alcohol policy in a bid to clean up the game's image and create a more responsible attitude to grog. Measures included a crackdown on Mad Monday rituals such as drinking games and pub crawls; the introduction of player education on the harms of binge drinking; and responsible-service-of-alcohol policies at best-and-fairest dinners, presidents' lunches, and corporate functions. But while health experts welcomed the move, saying that it went further than any other sporting code's, they pointed out that it was inconsistent with the league's acceptance of an estimated $5 million in annual sponsorship from alcohol companies — particularly as a 2008 New Zealand study found that athletes whose sports were sponsored by alcohol companies were more likely to binge drink. The study of nearly 1300 sportsmen and women from a range of codes, including rugby, soccer, and cricket, showed that nearly half received free or discounted drinks. Research from Deakin University released earlier in 2011 found similar results, with the authors claiming that athletes may drink more than they would if they were sponsored by non-alcohol brands because they feel indebted to their sponsors, and are exposed to more pro-alcohol messages on uniforms, stadium hoardings, and club merchandise.

At the end of the 2008 season, just a few months before the AFL's new alcohol policy was due for release, Brendan Fevola — who played for Carlton at the time, which was then sponsored by Carlton Draught — was pictured enjoying end-of-season celebrations at Melbourne's Federation Square. He was drunk, wearing a pink nightie, and had a dildo protruding from his pants. When I pointed out to Pippa Grange that this suggested she had her work cut out for her trying to change footy's boozy culture, she reminded me that Fevola was only one of 850 AFL players, the majority of whom are perfectly well behaved.

As the 2011 grand final between Geelong and Collingwood approaches — a contest I'd be happy for both teams to lose — I wonder how many players will get into trouble at this year's after-parties.

When game day arrives, I'm buzzing, ready to party, and soaking up the atmosphere as the television coverage kicks off with the traditional North Melbourne grand-final breakfast. I'm actually quite looking forward to not drinking, given that some of the worst hangovers I've had have followed these matches.

Unfortunately, my day turns out to be a disappointment. Not because I can't drink, but because I have to work. At midday, I've just stepped out of my apartment with my four-pack of ginger beer, on the way to what promises to be a cracking party with a giant projector screen, when my editor calls to tell me the news. Ironically, I will be kept from the festivities by my own football club's president. There's a story about Hawthorn president and former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, and his role with the national depression agency beyondblue, that just can't wait.

Ten hours later, I finish it. I contemplate going to my friend's party, but I know by that stage things will be very messy. I'm too tired and sober for messiness.

The next day, at a recovery session in the pub, everyone looks unwell — except for Loretta and Tim, two die-hard Cats fans, who are grinning as they bask in the glory of their team's ninth premiership. They danced till dawn and shared tequila with strangers in the street. I find out that fans were well behaved at the game, with just 14 arrests in a crowd of nearly 100,000. It's hard to imagine a similar result if Scottish football fans were allowed to drink at matches.

Days later, the premiership cup has barely left the engravers when Carlton & United Breweries release a limited-edition, blue-and-white Geelong-themed slab, with 24 commemorative AFL-endorsed cans wrapped in the triumphant team's photo. Around the same time, Lion release a similar special-edition Tooheys slab in Manly Warringah Sea Eagles colours, celebrating the rugby league team's premiership success. In a country where sport is a national religion, cashing in on that passion is a sure-fire money-spinner.

And it's no longer just the traditional blokey sporting codes that are being propped up by booze. At the start of the year, I visited the Australian Open for the first time in five years. A lot had changed since my last outing. It seemed that for some visitors, tennis was now much further down the list of priorities than getting wasted. As my friend Nat and I stood at the front of a queue outside Margaret Court Arena at 7.00 p.m., a group of boys staggered over. The one at the front was not in good shape: his eyes were glazed over; his once-white T-shirt was smattered with stains. ‘We're at the front of the line,' he yelled into his phone, a fug of musty beer breath wafting an unwelcome path towards me.

‘Actually, you're not at the front of the line,' I pointed out. ‘You've just cut in. The back of the queue is there.' I gestured to the 30 people lined up behind us.

Oblivious, he swayed, shifting the weight of his gangly frame from one foot to the other. The warm evening breeze seemed enough to knock him over. But he was bulletproof. ‘We're at the front of the line,' he hollered again. His height gave the illusion of maturity, but he couldn't have been more than 17 — 18 at a stretch. His spotty friends, less vocal but similarly under the influence, looked even younger. They were sunburnt and shit-faced. The steward, trying to manage the growing queue for the match between Ukrainian Illya Marchenko and my fellow countryman and fifth seed Andy Murray, was struggling to control them. Eventually, security moved them on. They loped off, perhaps in search of one more for the road. And they wouldn't have had far to stagger.

There's no shortage of opportunities to buy alcohol at the Australian Open. Don't get me wrong — I don't think we should deny tennis fans the pleasure of a cold beer or a glass of wine in the summer sunshine while watching some of the biggest names in the game take to the court. It's one of the few sporting events that sees tourists from all over the world converge on Melbourne to cheer on their homeland heroes. This carnival atmosphere has earned it the title of the ‘friendly' slam. But a shift is taking place. When the over-abundance of alcohol starts to alter the atmosphere and it feels like Melbourne's King Street on a Saturday night, something's wrong. Packs of shirtless young men staggering around, clutching pots of beer and turning the air blue with obscenities, is not a pretty sight.

Judging by the logos and branding hung from every lamppost, flagpole, and awning, Jacob's Creek and Heineken are bigger names at Melbourne Park than Federer and Nadal. The sponsorship of these global brands has no doubt allowed the Open to grow, pouring more cash into the event's coffers and getting more people through the gates, but at what cost? The beer garden has become so enormous that calling it a garden is a bit like calling the
Titanic
a dinghy. On the Thursday night we visited, there was a queue to rival any city nightclub just to get in. Inside, there were bars, deckchairs, live music, and takeaway outlets selling the sort of overpriced, deep-fried food best consumed after several pints; it was an environment engineered to give visitors no reason to leave. Some of the people I spoke with confessed that they hadn't seen one stroke of tennis since arriving at the bar, directly from work. Despite the two giant screens, they couldn't even tell me if home-crowd favourite Sam Stosur had won her match. For these visitors, coming to the tennis was all about drinking.